This page contains a list of the greatest Italian Singers. The pantheon dataset contains 3,528 Singers, 135 of which were born in Italy. This makes Italy the birth place of the 5th most number of Singers behind South Korea and France.
The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Italian Singers of all time. This list of famous Italian Singers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Italian Singers.
With an HPI of 78.84, Luciano Pavarotti is the most famous Italian Singer. His biography has been translated into 94 different languages on wikipedia.
Luciano Pavarotti (, US also , Italian: [luˈtʃaːno pavaˈrɔtti]; 12 October 1935 – 6 September 2007) was an Italian operatic tenor who during the late part of his career crossed over into popular music, eventually becoming one of the most acclaimed tenors of all time. He made numerous recordings of complete operas and individual arias, gaining worldwide fame for his tone, and gaining the nickname "King of the High Cs". As one of the Three Tenors, who performed their first concert during the 1990 FIFA World Cup before a global audience, Pavarotti became well known for his televised concerts and media appearances. From the beginning of his professional career as a tenor in 1961 in Italy to his final performance of "Nessun dorma" at the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Pavarotti was at his best in bel canto operas, pre-Aida Verdi roles, and Puccini works such as La bohème, Tosca, Turandot and Madama Butterfly. He sold over 100 million records, and the first Three Tenors recording became the best-selling classical album of all time. Pavarotti was also noted for his charity work on behalf of refugees and the Red Cross, amongst others. He was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 1988, and died from pancreatic cancer on 6 September 2007.
With an HPI of 73.87, Adriano Celentano is the 2nd most famous Italian Singer. His biography has been translated into 72 different languages.
Adriano Celentano (Italian: [adriˈaːno tʃelenˈtaːno]; born 6 January 1938) is an Italian musician, singer, composer, actor, and filmmaker. He is dubbed il Molleggiato (the springy one) because of his dancing.Celentano's many albums frequently enjoyed both commercial and critical success. With around 150 million records sold worldwide, he is the second best-selling italian musical artist. Often credited as the author of both the music and lyrics of his songs, according to his wife Claudia Mori, some were written in collaboration with others. Due to his prolific career, both in Italy and abroad, he is considered one of the pillars of Italian music. Celentano is recognized for being particularly perceptive of changes in the music business, and is credited for having introduced rock and roll to Italy. As an actor, Celentano has appeared in 39 films, mostly comedies.
With an HPI of 73.86, Enrico Caruso is the 3rd most famous Italian Singer. His biography has been translated into 72 different languages.
Enrico Caruso (, US also , Italian: [enˈriːko kaˈruːzo]; 25 February 1873 – 2 August 1921) was an Italian operatic first lyric tenor then dramatic tenor. He sang to great acclaim at the major opera houses of Europe and the Americas, appearing in a wide variety of roles (74) from the Italian and French repertoires that ranged from the lyric to the dramatic. One of the first major singing talents to be commercially recorded, Caruso made 247 commercially released recordings from 1902 to 1920, which made him an international popular entertainment star.
With an HPI of 73.85, Farinelli is the 4th most famous Italian Singer. His biography has been translated into 36 different languages.
Farinelli (Italian pronunciation: [fariˈnɛlli]; 24 January 1705 – 16 September 1782) was the stage name of Carlo Maria Michelangelo Nicola Broschi (pronounced [ˈkarlo ˈbrɔski]), a celebrated Italian castrato singer of the 18th century and one of the greatest singers in the history of opera. Farinelli has been described as having had soprano vocal range and as having sung the highest note customary at the time, C6.
With an HPI of 70.27, Andrea Bocelli is the 5th most famous Italian Singer. His biography has been translated into 86 different languages.
Andrea Bocelli (Italian: [anˈdrɛːa boˈtʃɛlli]; born 22 September 1958) is an Italian tenor. He was born visually impaired, with congenital glaucoma, and at the age of 12, Bocelli became completely blind, following a brain hemorrhage resulting from a football accident. After performing evenings in piano bars and competing in local singing contests, Bocelli signed his first recording contract with the Sugar Music label. He rose to fame in 1994, winning the newcomer’s section of the 44th Sanremo Music Festival performing "Il mare calmo della sera".Since 1994, Bocelli has recorded 15 solo studio albums of both pop and classical music, three greatest hits albums, and nine complete operas, selling over 75 million records worldwide. He has had success as a crossover performer, bringing classical music to the top of international pop charts. His album Romanza is one of the best-selling albums of all time, while Sacred Arias is the biggest selling classical album by any solo artist in history. My Christmas was the best-selling holiday album of 2009 and one of the best-selling holiday albums in the United States. The 2019 album Sì debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart and US Billboard 200, becoming Bocelli's first number-one album in both countries. His song "Con te partirò", included on his second album Bocelli, is one of the best-selling singles of all time. The track was licensed to feature in a series of television commercials for TIM in the late 1990s, which eventually became very popular in Italy.In 1998, Bocelli was named one of People magazine's 50 Most Beautiful People. He duetted with Celine Dion on the song "The Prayer" for the animated film Quest for Camelot, which won the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. In 1999, he was nominated for Best New Artist at the Grammy Awards. He captured a listing in the Guinness Book of World Records with the release of his classical album Sacred Arias, as he simultaneously held the top three positions on the US Classical Albums charts.Bocelli was made a Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 2006, and was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on 2 March 2010 for his contribution to Live Theater, and he was awarded a gold medal for Merit in Serbia in 2022. Singer Celine Dion has said that "if God would have a singing voice, he must sound a lot like Andrea Bocelli", and record producer David Foster has often described Bocelli's voice as the most beautiful in the world.
With an HPI of 69.74, Toto Cutugno is the 6th most famous Italian Singer. His biography has been translated into 70 different languages.
Salvatore "Toto" Cutugno (Italian pronunciation: [ˈtɔːto kuˈtuɲɲo]; born 7 July 1943) is an Italian pop singer-songwriter and musician. He is best known for his worldwide hit song, "L'Italiano", released on his 1983 album of the same title. Cutugno also won the Eurovision Song Contest 1990 held in Zagreb, Croatia, SFR Yugoslavia with the song "Insieme: 1992", for which he wrote both lyrics and music.
With an HPI of 69.59, Albano Carrisi is the 7th most famous Italian Singer. His biography has been translated into 38 different languages.
Albano Antonio Carrisi (Italian: [alˈbaːno karˈriːzi]; born 20 May 1943), better known as Al Bano, is an Italian tenor, actor, and winemaker. Having sold over 25 million records globally and career spanning seven decades, he is one of the most recognisable Italian singers in the world. He has gained worldwide notability due to his four and a half octave vocal range as well as mésalliance with Romina Power, daughter of Hollywood legend Tyrone Power. Carrisi is acclaimed for singing with operatic affinity in pop, rock and italo disco repertoires. In 2016, he was awarded Albanian citizenship due to his close ties with the country and a forename referring to the land.
With an HPI of 67.39, Salvatore Adamo is the 8th most famous Italian Singer. His biography has been translated into 34 different languages.
Salvatore Adamo (born November 1, 1943) is an Italian-Belgian musician, singer and composer, who is known for his romantic ballads. Adamo was born in Comiso, Sicily, Italy, and has lived in Belgium since the age of three, which is why he has dual citizenship. Since 2001 Adamo holds the Belgian noble title of Ridder, similar to the English title of "Knight".He first gained popularity throughout Europe and later in the Middle East, Latin America, Japan, and the United States. He has sold more than 80 million albums and 20 million singles making him one of the most commercially successful musicians in the world. He mainly performs in French but has also sung in Italian, Dutch, English, German, Spanish, Japanese, and Turkish. "Tombe la neige", "La nuit", "Vous permettez, Monsieur ?", "Inch'Allah" and "C'est ma vie" remain his best known songs. He is currently the best selling Belgian musician of all time.
With an HPI of 65.07, Gigliola Cinquetti is the 9th most famous Italian Singer. Her biography has been translated into 46 different languages.
Gigliola Cinquetti (Italian pronunciation: [dʒiʎˈʎɔːla tʃiŋˈkwetti]; born Giliola Cinquetti on 20 December 1947) is an Italian singer, songwriter, and television presenter.
With an HPI of 64.35, Renata Tebaldi is the 10th most famous Italian Singer. Her biography has been translated into 34 different languages.
Renata Tebaldi (US: tə-BAHL-dee, Italian: [reˈnaːta teˈbaldi]; 1 February 1922 – 19 December 2004) was an Italian lirico-spinto soprano popular in the post-war period, and especially prominent as one of the stars of La Scala, San Carlo and, especially, the Metropolitan Opera. Often considered among the great opera singers of the 20th century, she focused primarily on the verismo roles of the lyric and dramatic repertoires. Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini called her voice "la voce d'angelo" ("the voice of an angel"), and La Scala music director Riccardo Muti called her "one of the greatest performers with one of the most extraordinary voices in the field of opera."
Pantheon has 135 people classified as singers born between 1619 and 2003. Of these 135, 85 (62.96%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living singers include Adriano Celentano, Andrea Bocelli, and Toto Cutugno. The most famous deceased singers include Luciano Pavarotti, Enrico Caruso, and Farinelli. As of April 2022, 13 new singers have been added to Pantheon including Antonietta Stella, Robertino Loreti, and Giulia Grisi.
1938 - Present
HPI: 73.87
1958 - Present
HPI: 70.27
1943 - Present
HPI: 69.74
1943 - Present
HPI: 69.59
1943 - Present
HPI: 67.39
1947 - Present
HPI: 65.07
1940 - Present
HPI: 62.86
1963 - Present
HPI: 62.70
1934 - Present
HPI: 59.47
1944 - Present
HPI: 59.42
1955 - Present
HPI: 59.27
1952 - Present
HPI: 58.08
1935 - 2007
HPI: 78.84
1873 - 1921
HPI: 73.86
1705 - 1782
HPI: 73.85
1922 - 2004
HPI: 64.35
1928 - 1994
HPI: 64.19
1935 - 2020
HPI: 62.16
1858 - 1922
HPI: 61.86
1890 - 1957
HPI: 61.62
1619 - 1677
HPI: 61.57
1921 - 2003
HPI: 60.83
1915 - 1982
HPI: 60.37
1921 - 2008
HPI: 60.36
1929 - 2022
HPI: 52.48
1947 - Present
HPI: 50.96
1811 - 1869
HPI: 50.44
1850 - 1905
HPI: 48.97
1889 - 1936
HPI: 48.63
1696 - 1778
HPI: 47.74
1962 - Present
HPI: 44.58
1950 - Present
HPI: 43.69
1952 - Present
HPI: 43.58
1963 - Present
HPI: 39.89
1999 - Present
HPI: 37.49
1964 - Present
HPI: 33.49
Which Singers were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 25 most globally memorable Singers since 1700.